Workers begin repairs Wednesday on the Mineral, Va., city hall after it was damged by Tuesday's 5.8 earthquake.

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A day after a magnitude-5.8 earthquake shook cities along the East Coast, residents up and down this meandering rural road near the town of Mineral, the epicenter of the earthquake, were sizing up the damage to their homes. They were looking to repair toppled chimneys, sagging foundations and sunken carports.

"We're just trying to regroup," says Cecilia Brown, 50, as she looks around the one-story house she and her husband, Joseph, have owned on Roundabout for 25 years.

She sees the mess of papers, computer equipment, broken picture frames, shards of glass, clothes and books on the floor. The entire back wall separated from their house, leaving cracks, buckled bricks and open spaces.

Roundabout was one of three country roads where Louisa County residents reported the most structural damage.

Across the East Coast on Wednesday, cleanup was ongoing as schools, homes, businesses and national monuments were being assessed for damage. Homeowners and businesses were clearing piles of bricks and masonry, plugging holes in roofs and cleaning up broken china, glass and rubble left behind.

The National Cathedral suffered damage expected to cost millions of dollars to repair, says spokesman Richard Weinberg. However, he said none of the damage is structural.

Three of the four pinnacles in the cathedral's central tower fell. The fourth is still intact, but perches precariously, Weinberg says.

The cathedral will remain closed at least until Saturday, forcing a scheduled interfaith service to mark the opening of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial to be moved to the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. The event is expected to attract 3,000 people.

"We want to do further assessments assuring that no other elements fall from on high," Weinberg says. He says cathedral officials need time to see if they need to put up protective measures, such as netting.

The Washington Monument also remains closed as structural engineers inspect a 4-foot crack on the west side of the top of the monument, says Carol Johnson, a spokeswoman for the National Park Service. She did not yet have an estimate of the cost of the damage or how long the monument will be closed.

School districts also were busy bringing in structural engineers to inspect buildings that experienced cracks, fallen ceiling tiles and other damage. At least six school districts in Virginia and two in Maryland were closed Wednesday as officials assessed damage.

In Louisa County, population 33,000, the towns of Mineral and Louisa sit about six miles from each other. Amanda Reidelbach, a county spokeswoman, says much of the damage in the county centered in the area near the two towns on roads such as Roundabout.

Reidelbach says a dozen building inspectors and real estate assessors trooped across the 500 square miles that make up the county Wednesday to assess damage to homes and other structures. A preliminary report found 146 homes with minor to moderate damage and at least 21 with severe damage, including two that collapsed, she says.

Back on Roundabout Road, Edna Betz, 75, and her husband, Aaron, 76, were dealing with a hole in their attic, left after their brick chimney split in two and collapsed. The bottom half of the chimney was still standing, while bricks from the top half fell in a heap in their yard.

"When I walked in here, I couldn't believe it," Betz says. She had been at a cousin's house five miles away when the earthquake hit and they had no damage. "But for us, everything was crushed or broken and what was not broken was on the floor."

On Wednesday, a contractor was covering the hole in the attic with a tarp so rain wouldn't get in if their area is hit by Hurricane Irene, which is expected to reach Virginia early Sunday.

"That's all we need," Betz said.

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